My commute to work shares the path of “chicken trucks” en route to the Draper Valley Farms slaughterhouse. (The sanitized name is “Processing Plant.”) Depending on the time I go into work, I may see a truck carrying live birds to their deaths about once a week. Occasionally, I see live birds in the morning, and then a truck carrying dead birds in the evening…

12/13/11…Today at 8:30 AM I saw the ‘chicken truck’ driving north carrying live birds to this “processing plant.” At 6:00 PM tonight, I saw a “Draper Valley Farms” truck driving south carrying the refrigerated body parts of those same birds. What I want to know is this…

At what time did those beings experience the first pains of “processing?” At what time were the frightened birds grabbed– by the fistful– by men unloading their metal cages? When were they hung upside down on hooks? When did the first one experience broken bones? At what time did they realize they would die? At what time did they hit the electrified bath? When did the first bird miss the automatic throat-slitting machine & go to the scalder alive? At what time did the ‘backup slaughterer’ start his shift? When were the birds’ heads pulled off? Feet & feathers removed? Eviscerated? When did the feces start to spray all over? When did the carcasses commune in the refrigerated water? When were these birds chopped up and packaged in cellophane?

AND…At what time will the delivery truck driver unload the neat little blood-free packages at the back door of the grocery store? At what time will the stocker arrange the stacks of flesh? When will the first customer come to pick through the piles of breasts, thighs or legs? At what time will the grocery patron complain that chicken is just getting too “expensive?”

AND…When will that same grocery patron make the connection that IN these packages were birds who were exploited, abused, hurt and killed for NO good reason. WHEN?? When will he go vegan? When will she go vegan? God, I hope it’s soon.

Driving behind a chicken truck on a freezing November night is the first time I realized how much suffering we are causing. I have been vegetarian for 5 years now. Two other people in my family have joined me. One day people will stop the cruelty. Keep talking about this. You never know who might be inspired to change.